Julie Maclean, from Bristol, UK, now lives on the Surf Coast, Australia. Her books include To Have To Follow (Indigo Dreams Publishing, UK, 2016), Kiss of the Viking (Poetry Salzburg, 2014) and When I saw Jimi, shortlisted for The Crashaw Prize (Salt) and joint winner of the Geoff Stevens Poetry Prize (Indigo Dreams, 2013). Her work appears in journals like POETRY (Chicago), BODY, The Best Australian Poetry, The Rialto and Shearsman.
Blog: www.juliemacleanwriter.com
Art of Deconstruction
Such a little room
to keep my honeyeaters in
walls held together
by feather and spit
If I feed them enough
I will be reborn
able to hold on
But soon they feed all day
I get bored sick
stuck at the sink in my big house
making meals that keep
them keen
I lose the will
no longer
care for feathered walls
and bird spit
sitting in my tree house
freezer crammed
with curry and rice
so I slash the canvas
with red
bleeding down the sky
They hate what I've done
but I don't care because I'm now
interested
in nothing else
but building the poem